No trip to the Kingdom of Tonga would be complete without a look at the Royal Palace. The king who is about 85 years old uses this Palace as his working office situated in town on the Waterfront. His actual residence is on the other side of the island.

The main intersection in town can get busier than this ........ but rarely does! Tonga makes an excellent location for a very quiet holiday

Some of our 40+ crew in the Kingdom, those white faces in the middle are Walt and Deborah. The picture on the left was taken in 1994 and than on the right was taken just recently, we still have most of the same faces at "WSI Tonga" seen her with our General Manager Tim and our Tonga manager Anetti.

The Tonga holding station showing both the fish system in the foreground and the coral system around the sides and background.

On the left and on the right are a few shots of our coral rows showing yellow leather, mushroom rock, carnation etc..... you will notice the necessity to keep some of the items off the bottom of the tanks using a grate platform.

One of two packing tables. This one is used for the fish system and also shows the purified shipping water that we prepare 24 hours prior to each shipment with sterilizes and chilled water used in packing.

Typical pack day with orders being lined up ready to ship. This view shows our other pack table used for the corals which are packed under slightly different water conditions (slightly cooler and a little lower salinity) than the fish. That's the shipping water tower on the left.

Tongans are a happy bunch of friendly people and love to be in any picture   ..... even if its on a busy pack day when they have been working all night!

Orders being stacked and ready to ship.

Motofi (right) is our "class clown" I have never seen this guy without a smile,  even after a tiring twelve hour pack.

Orders on the way to the airport which is about a 30 minute drive. Now that that's done ..... lets go dive and get ready for next weeks order.

One of our boats ready to go. What will it be today boys? Fiji damsels, lavender rock, yellow leather or Tonga branch?

Warehouse manager Dickie with a nice piece of Tonga Branch "Show" size.

Tonga branch has become one of the staples of the live rock trade. The picture below exhibits how it should be used in the tank in conjunction with a little Tonga Shelf rock to create ledges and holes for the fish to swim through and plenty of area to display your corals while providing complete water circulation throughout the tank as shown below.

Sometimes we get the branch in different shapes!

Some of our working area with miles and miles of visible reef. Actually, if you turned around here you would be looking at the main part of town. You can see a few of the 180 islands in the background.

Those islands are about 30 minutes away by boat. Ref, reef and more reef ..... not a bad place to wind up after a hard days work (play?) .... I guess it depends on your point of view.

Can I ship this?

Tongans are known to be among the best carvers in the South Pacific.  Although killing whales has been illegal for many years in Tonga there are still plenty of sheds around the Islands filled with bones left over from the old days when whale meat was part of the Tongan's regular diet. However, carvings like this must stay in Tonga because whale bone is protected under International agreements such as C.I.T.E.S.